OTTAWA — The CRTC is asking the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association (CWTA) to tell the Commission how the association and its members plan to combat the issue of unauthorized porting of mobile phone numbers, a fraudulent activity that has been reported with increasing frequency in recent months.
CBC News has reported recently on several instances where mobile phone customers reported falling victim to number porting.
“The Commission has become aware that certain Canadian mobile customers have been subject to fraudulent activity involving unauthorized porting of their mobile phone numbers,” the CRTC wrote January 15 in a letter to the CWTA.
“Given the seriousness of this issue and the negative impact on Canadians, Commission staff requests that the CWTA provide a written update on the Canadian mobile industry’s plans to implement effective solutions to this problem,” the CRTC adds.
The CRTC has requested that the CWTA’s update should include the following information:
- A description of how unauthorized ports are accomplished.
- Available data from the CWTA and its members indicative of the prevalence of unauthorized ports and SIM swapping in Canada, such as the number of instances of each, by wireless carrier, over the last 6 months.
- A description of the information that wireless carriers currently obtain from customers as part of the wireless-to-wireless number porting process, and how this information is used or verified before a port is permitted.
- The information that is exchanged between wireless carriers when a customer is changing wireless carrier.
- A description of the customer and technical information that gets modified in carriers’ databases as a result of a port.
- A detailed description of the measures that the Canadian mobile industry is taking or contemplating to take to prevent unauthorized ports and SIM swapping, including key milestones and timelines.
- An indication of the CWTA’s plan to engage non-members in any described process improvements and to educate the public as appropriate.
The CRTC asks the CWTA to file its update with Commission staff by February 14, 2020.
